Members of two chapters of the Arkansas Society Sons of the American Revolution will mark the grave of Revolutionary War soldier Asher Bagley Sr. on April 8 at the Old Union Cemetery in Saline County. Preparing for the memorial event are, from left, David James Hoss Sr. of Rose Bud, Bagley’s third great-grandson, past state SAR president and past president of the Casimir Pulaski Chapter, SAR; Larry Hartzinger of Hot Springs Village, treasurer, DeSoto Trace SAR Chapter; Charles McLemore of Joplin in Montgomery County, president, DeSoto Trace SAR Chapter; and Jimmie Weber of Diamondhead, secretary, DeSoto Trace SAR Chapter. Photo by: Matt Johnson.

Asher Bagley Sr. served in the American Revolution as a private in the first New Jersey Regiment. Following the war, he settled in Saline County in about 1828 near the community known as Bland. He is buried in the Old Union Cemetery in that community.

His third great-grandson, David James Hoss Sr. of Rose Bud in White County, and other members of the Arkansas Society Sons of the American Revolution will remember Bagley in a grave-marking ceremony at 11 a.m. April 8 at the Old Union Cemetery.

Descendants of Bagley and members of the public are invited to attend the event, which is co-sponsored by the Casimir Pulaski and DeSoto Trace chapters of the Arkansas Society SAR.

Jeremy Alexander, a Georgetown employee, recently discovered that his paternal great-great-great-grandmother, Anna Mahoney Jones, was one of the 272 slaves sold by two Jesuit priests at the university in 1838. Credit: Paul Jones/Georgetown University

As a Georgetown employee, Jeremy Alexander watched as the university grappled with its haunted past: the sale of slaves in 1838 to help rescue it from financial ruin.

He listened as Georgetown’s president apologized for its sins and looked for ways to make amends. And Mr. Alexander observed, with wonder, some of the slave descendants when they visited the campus.

What he did not know at the time: He was one of them.

Mr. Alexander’s paternal great-great-great grandmother, Anna Mahoney Jones, was one of the 272 slaves sold by two Jesuit priests at Georgetown for about $115,000, or $3.3 million in today’s dollars. She and her two young children were enslaved at a plantation in Ascension Parish, La.

The following excerpt is from an informative article dealing with Washington County, Maryland, and the Irish immigrants who worked on the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal, many settling in the area. Disease was not well understood in the early 19th-century, leading to the early demise of many immigrants who were just looking for a better life. Read the full article, from the Washington County Historical Society, to learn much more.

Even when we do reflect on the hardships faced by Irish immigrants to America, we tend to think mostly of places like Boston or New York City, where Irish heritage and culture have gained a lasting footprint. But Washington County was home to large groups of Irish immigrants, brought to the area specifically to work on the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal. This, to put it plainly, was a hard and often deadly life. Because of the hard labor and poor working conditions, daily life along the canal was filled with injury, disease and violence.

The process of building the C&O Canal was a struggle from the very beginning. This area had a bad reputation for ill health during the summers, and a lot of competition for labor from the agricultural sector. Finding workers to build the canal was a difficult and costly prospect, and so the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal Co. looked toward imported labor from Great Britain.

This new Second Edition contains many updates. Since the first edition in 2009, over 200 of the 265 Internet addresses alone within the volume changed! Virtually every state section of the book had to be updated and revised. Another major change of many pages within the book dealt with the Periodical Source Index (PERSI), which is now found exclusively at FindMyPast.org.

Most genealogical records during the decade of the Civil War are related to the soldiers and regiments of the Union and Confederate military. However, there are numerous records relating to the entire population as well. This new volume by William Dollarhide identifies the places to look and documents to be found for ancestors during the decade, 1861-1869, as well as post-war veterans. The book is laid out first by nation-wide name lists and then by state listings in alphabetical order.

The following excerpt is from the March 21, 2017 article posted at OnlineEthiopia.net:

The Ethiopian Jews, who primarily relocated from Ethiopia to Israel through Israeli rescue missions in the 1980s, form a unique minority of today’s Israeli population. Back In Ethiopia, they were known as Falasha, meaning “strangers”, and have referred to themselves as Beta Israel, or “the house of Israel”. Their settlements were scattered in the northwestern area of Ethiopia and the border zone with the Sudan.

The approach and methodology of the conventional theory on the origins of the Ethiopian Jewry, as proposed by James Quirin, rejects the existence of an ancestral connection between the contemporary Ethiopian Jewish community and the ancient Israelite-Jews. Proponents of this theory trace the origins of the group to what they perceive as a local Ethiopian separatist movement within Christianity in the 14th-to-16th century.

Cellular Research Institute has recently introduced CRI Genetics, the organization’s Genetics division dedicated to helping individuals find out key information pertaining to their ancestry. Led by seasoned researcher Alexei Fedorov, CRI Genetics is now offering the most advanced DNA testing kit on the market.

March 25th, 2017 – Cellular Research Institute, a team of researchers dedicated to providing accurate information about research, medicine, and the environment, has recently introduced their Genetics division. Operating under the name CRI Genetics, this new division is now offering a DNA testing kit to help people find out their detailed family history based on Genealogy and Anthropology.

CRI Genetics is headed by Alexei Fedorov, an Associate Professor of Medicine and the Director of Bioinformatics Lab at The University of Toledo. With over thirty-five years of experience in the field of human genome behind him, Dr. Fedorov now helps people understand their ancestry in the most personal way possible.

The personal DNA testing kit from CRI Genetics comes with detailed instructions. The users are only required to gently rub their cheek with the provided cotton swab, seal it in the provided bag, register it online, and mail it to CRI Genetics. The samples are tested in a CILA accredited laboratory using patented DNA analysis software. The reports containing the users’ BioGeographical ancestry can be accessed online after 6-8 weeks.

Some key attributes of CRI Genetics DNA testing kits are:

• CRI Genetics’ primary service is an Autosomal DNA test where each sample is tested against thousands of DNA samples from populations all around the world to determine an individual’s BioGeographical Ancestry. This is done on the basis of 176 relevant genetic markers.
• Customers need not pay any monthly subscription fee for using CRI Genetics’ DNA testing kit. CRI Genetics also provides an Efficiency Guarantee, offering customers a complete refund if the reports are not available within eight weeks.

Within a very short period of time, many men and women have used CRI Genetics’ DNA testing kit with great satisfaction. Highlighting his experience, a highly impressed user mentioned, “CRI Genetics has helped me make incredible discoveries about my family that I never would have known before. I grew up thinking that that family was French and found out that were actually German.”

CRI Genetics is a team of Geneticists, Anthropologists, and Social Scientists, who work together to deliver an accurate estimation of people’s ancestry. A division of Cellular Research Institute, CRI Genetics is headed by noted researcher and human genome specialist Alexei Fedorov.

Oh, Wow! FamilySearch is doing another week-long series of FREE classes – all dealing with Western European research. It looks like classes are being offered dealing with research in Germany, France, Belgium, Luxembourg, Netherlands, and Switzerland. Check out the class titles below. If you can make the time, I’d highly advise stopping and taking those classes that look interesting to you. These classes are available as streaming webinars, or as on-site classes in the classrooms at the Family History Library in Salt Lake City. Patty and I took a series of similar classes when they were offered last fall, and learned all kinds of things. The following is from FamilySearch:

Salt Lake City, Utah (26 March 2017), FamilySearch’s world-renowned Family History Library in Salt Lake City, Utah, will be offering its free Western European Family History Conference, May 15 to May 19, 2017. Guests can attend classes in person or online. The conference will focus exclusively on select Western European research and is intended for beginning and intermediate researchers. Classes are free, but registration is required due to class size and webinar bandwidth limitations. For more information or to register, go to FamilySearch Wiki. Easily find and share this news release online in the FamilySearch Newsroom.

Classes will be taught by the Family History Library’s staff of experts and guest genealogists. Content will focus primarily on how to research records from Germany, France, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, and Belgium. Topics addressed will include census, church, immigration, and vital records.

REGISTRATION IS REQUIRED. Use the following links to register for deisired conference classes online or in the library: in-person guests or webinar guests.

About FamilySearch
FamilySearch International is the largest genealogy organization in the world. FamilySearch is a nonprofit, volunteer-driven organization sponsored by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Millions of people use FamilySearch records, resources, and services to learn more about their family history. To help in this great pursuit, FamilySearch and its predecessors have been actively gathering, preserving, and sharing genealogical records worldwide for over 100 years. Patrons may access FamilySearch services and resources free online at FamilySearch.org or through over 4,921 family history centers in 129 countries, including the main Family History Library in Salt Lake City, Utah.

Salt Lake City, Utah (March 25, 2017), Hundreds of thousands of free indexed records from all over Italy are featured in these newly published online collections. Additionally, find newly searchable records from Canada, Ecuador, Germany, The Netherlands, Peru, Sweden and the United States. Search these new free records and more at FamilySearch by clicking on the links in the interactive table below.

Searchable historic records are made available on FamilySearch.org through the help of thousands of volunteers from around the world. These volunteers transcribe (index) information from digital copies of handwritten records to make them easily searchable online. More volunteers are needed (particularly those who can read foreign languages) to keep pace with the large number of digital images being published online at FamilySearch.org. Learn more about volunteering to help provide free access to the world’s historic genealogical records online at FamilySearch.org/indexing.

Elizabeth Lapointe, a friend and fellow genealogy blogger, passed away on Monday, March 13, 2017. Elizabeth was a terrific genealogist, specializing in Canadian genealogy. She wrote a column for Heritage Quest Magazine years ago, and that’s how I got to know her. Elizabeth was currently the editor of the Ontario Genealogical Society’s Families, having just completed the Spring 2017 issue prior to her passing. Her blog, Genealogy Canada, was always helpful and informative.

To coincide with St Patrick’s Day 2017, Findmypast is making their entire collection of more than 116 million Irish records free for a limited time!

Through 17 March 2017, you can access the largest collection of Irish records online for FREE!

Unique records from World War 1 and the Easter Rising, extensive travel and migration collections, as well as detailed Irish court and prison registers are all available to help you add colour to your users’ discoveries.

March 14, 2017 — Boston, Massachusetts—Honor your Irish heritage this St. Patrick’s Day by researching your Irish ancestry on AmericanAncestors.org, the award-winning website of New England Historic Genealogical Society (NEHGS). Learn the essential concepts and techniques for Irish research, and find out which manuscripts, collections, and sources are used by genealogists at American Ancestors to crack the toughest research cases.

Irish resources will be free and open from Wednesday, March 15, through midnight (EDST) on Wednesday, March 22. Access requires a free, brief sign-up on AmericanAncestors.org.

The Only Online Source for Boston’s Catholic Records
Browse record images of baptisms, marriages, and more from Boston’s oldest parishes, including the Cathedral of the Holy Cross and Holy Trinity. NEHGS is digitizing parish records from 1789 to 1900, a period of significant growth for both Boston’s Catholic Church and the Irish immigrant population.

Break Through Your Irish Brick Wall
With expert resources from NEHGS, found exclusively on AmericanAncestors.org, learn tips for navigating the sometimes challenging course of finding Irish ancestors. This Irish-themed promotion from American Ancestors includes an hour-long webinar on NEHGS Irish Resources, an online subject guide to locate key resources and records in Irish genealogy, and popular articles from our American Ancestors magazine with fascinating insights about Irish and Irish American genealogy.

NEHGS offers FREE access to all of its Irish databases and resources via AmericanAncestors.org from March 15 through midnight (EDST) on March 22. Access requires registration as a FREE Guest User at AmericanAncestors.org/Irish.

The bundle is normally $29.85. It’s discounted 15% through May 22. Click on this link to order the bundle. Don’t need all three items? Order any one of two items for 10% off at their respective sites (see links below).

Lisa Louise Cooke just released a new series of two Irish Research Quick Guides. They were written by Donna M. Moughty, and edited by Lisa. While only four pages each, these guides are loaded with information everyone with Irish ancestry can use.

FRPC is offering these new guides at 10% off through March 21.

Following is a description of each:Preparing for Success in Irish Records Research: Guide #1 in the Irish Research Series
Without the right preparation, researching in Ireland can be frustrating! Before you jump the pond, start your research at home to determine a place in Ireland, as well as details to help differentiate your person from someone of the same name. This research guide will walk you through the process of identifying records in the US to set you up for success in your Irish research.

About the Author
Donna Moughty is a professional genealogist and a former Regional Manager for Apple Computers. She has been conducting family research for over 20 years. She teaches classes for beginners and lectures on a variety of subjects including Internet, Irish research, and computer topics. In addition, she provides consultations, research assistance, and training. She is a member of Association of Professional Genealogists and the Genealogical Speakers Guild.

Produced in 2012, this 66-page special edition features 12 articles relevant to Irish research (a complete article list is provided below). As the cover text states, articles cover a wide variety of topics. Many article are printed with images and sample to get a better feel for the topic. Alan Stewart’s article on Internet-based Irish research covers over 50 websites, with full URLs and a brief summary of each. Page by page, the reader is taken through the various topics covered by each author’s area of expertise.

Family Roots Publishing is offering this publication at 10% off through March 21, 2017.

Even though each article appeared previously in one of Moorshead’s three magazines, before publication articles were updated to ensure source materials and online references were up to date. While some references may change with time, having the source names can help researches find any altered sites usually with some ease.

Whether the research lives in Ireland or is the descendant of an Irish immigrant, the information from these articles is highly relevant. With modern communications, the world seems to shrink more each year. The cost of communicating and accessing documents and records located around the world is faster and cheaper than ever before.

Contents

Can You Get a Certificate of Irish Heritage

Hilda McGauley looks at a fun, and informative, way to recognize your Irish heritage

Your Irish Ancestry Online: A Definitive Guide

Alan Stewart goes online in search of the top Internet-based Irish research resources

Online Irish Family History Resources

From Ireland’s local governments and libraries, David A. Norris looks at what is on the ‘Net